Windrose: Tainted Priestess Guide
At the time of writing, Windrose’s Early Access comes to an end when you defeat the Tainted Princess. Despite being the final boss currently available in the game, it arguably is easier than the two others.
Here is our complete guide to taking down the Tainted Priestess in Windrose, and why it is actually easier than Thomas Richards and Israel Hands.
A Lengthy Preparation
As with everything else in Windrose, the more you progress, the more you have to grind. While the Tainted Priestess is a mechanically simpler fight than the two first bosses in the game, it is the most inflated combat when it comes to raw numbers.
We highly recommend you invest into Epic Quality foods and elixirs. Here are the ones we recommend:
- Coffee: This is mandatory for every build. It raises your Maximum Health, lasts 30 minutes, and gives you a whopping 20 Endurance. You need 4x Coffee Beans and 4x Cane Sugar to cook it.
- This one depends. Unlike the two other boss fights in Windrose, we do not recommend an investment into Vitality. This boss is a slog and will one-shot you in its second phase unless you invest a ridiculous number of points into Vitality. Therefore, you should pick the Epic Food that boosts your main offensive attribute (Swamp Pie for Precision, Gazpacho for Agility, Meaty Croc Kebab for Strength).
- Infused Elixir of Cruelty: When you find Bromeliads in the Swamp biome you’ll unlock access to the level 4 Alchemy Table and Infused Elixirs, which last 30 minutes instead of the normal 15 minutes. The Infused Elixir of Cruelty increases your Damage by 8% for 30 minutes and is crafted with: 1x Elixir of Cruelty, 3x Bromeliad, 2x Tear of Sorrow.
Obviously, you should not engage with the Tainted Priestess until you’ve gotten all your armor and weapon to Item Level 15. If you’re really struggling, you can take your character level to 15 as well, but we managed to take it down at level 13.
Tainted Priestess Complete Guide
What makes the Tainted Priestess a mechanically easier fight than the two first bosses in Windrose is how small her arsenal is. Unlike Thomas Richards and Israel Hands, the Tainted Priestess has a moveset that can be easily memorized and almost always predicted.
This becomes even easier if you apply the best advice we have to give, which has to do with your positioning. But before we get into that, here are all the attacks that the boss has:
- Swipes: the most frequent attack that the toad will do is a swipe, almost always followed by another with the opposite paw. It will either go from left to right or from right to left, depending on your positioning.
- Paw Smash: occasionally, the first swipe will be followed by a much quicker paw smash. The boss only does this move with its right paw, though, which plays into our positioning.
- Jump: if you are to the sides of the boss and behind its paws, instead of the swipes, she will frequently opt for a jump. Upon landing, she will damage a considerable area all around her, so you’ll need to dodge backwards.
- Tail Swipe: besides the Jump, the boss also has an unblockable Tail Swipe that she’ll do when you are towards its back paws. This is quite a quick move and deals a ton of damage, be sure to time your dodge correctly.
- Belly Flop: when you are on the toad’s left side, she will occasionally roll towards you, trying to smash you with her back. While this is a slow move, it is deceptively tough to dodge. It is slower than most of her other moves, so you need to delay your dodge a bit.
- Trample: the second and final unblockable move that this boss will do is much rarer. It usually only happens if you are at some distance, but not too far. The toad will have an unblockable warning and quickly rush you down. Dodge to the sides.
- Artillery Strike: if you are too far away from the boss, the massive toad will open her mouth and start shooting you with balls of saliva that deal a ton of damage. You can kind of dodge these, but it is much safer to just stick close to the boss.
Unique Mechanics
While the Tainted Priestess is relatively simple mechanically, it does have some unique interactions that wasn’t present in any other boss. You’ll notice that the toad will have huge blisters spread throughout its body that keep changing positions.
These blisters can be destroyed by a ranged shot or a melee strike and, when you blow one up, they remove two Posture from the boss. This is key to succeeding in this fight as the boss as a whopping 6 Posture, each require multiple hits to remove.
There is some RNG involved with this fight because these blisters can either spawn close to the ground, perfectly hittable with melee weapons, or concentrated almost entirely on the Toad’s back, virtually unreachable.
The best advice we can give regarding this mechanic is to not get too obsessed with it. Shoot them with your pistol if you see an opening, hit them with your sword if they’re reachable, but don’t focus too much on it. It is a bonus, not mandatory for taking the Priestess down.
When you do take break the boss’s posture, instead of entering a short stunned state like every other enemy, the toad becomes stunned for much longer and reveals the actual Tainted Priestess, a sort of humanoid flower that is inside its belly.
So when you see this humanoid emerge, focus entirely on attacking it until it retreats back into the toad’s belly. This is a weak spot that takes a ton more damage than every other area of the boss.
Lastly, upon reaching close to 50% HP, the boss will start its second phase. Instead of getting new moves or changing its behavior, the Tainted Priestess gets a massive damage increase. You’ll see the toad do a new animation and its paws will glow red.
Most attacks during this phase will one-shot you, even with high Vitality. The plan is the same, though. You could technically parry the boss’s moves previously, but even a perfect block would still damage you, so you should always be dodging.
Our “Secret”
You can kind of cheese the Tainted Priestess boss by trying to always stick behind its left paw, for a variety of reasons. If the boss does swipe, it will do so with its left paw first, and you’ll be safe even if it follows up with the Paw Smash.
While it might do the Jump, sticking to its left side will most often force it to do the Belly Flop, which can let you punish with a swipe to the unusually unreachable blisters on its back. The timing is tight, but if you nail it, you’ll often explode multiple blisters at once.
Lastly, it might occasionally do an unblockable Tail Swipe, but you are so far away from its tail that it becomes trivial to dodge. Try to stick in this position through the entire fight, even if you’re healing with potions, and just be patient. This fight is a bit of a slog and a lengthy marathon, but it isn’t mechanically complicated at all.
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